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An update: I was able to arrange a demo of the ATC SCM 40 at short notice via a accomodating dealer
I felt the midrange and treble were comparable to my B&W's. As could be predicted the bass was where the big differences were. Sited with their front baffles only 70cm from the back wall they produced a taut / fast / boom free bass. I'm sure they would have sounded good in my home despite the extra contribution from my room peaks . I did yearn for more bass however and so after discussing things with the dealer and the ATC rep i have arranged a home demo of the SCM50's. Although the 50's are ported and the 40's infinate baffle they both felt i might still achieve a taut bass with a room position closer to the rear wall that my B&W's are currently. I will know in about a week. If i can't make the 50's work i'm sure the 40's will.
i have also been researching other speakers that have been mentioned both here and by another local dealer
The Wilson Audio Sabrina has been suggested but it's pricey even in ex demo form and i fear will be voiced for a small American room i.e a large UK one
The B&W 803D3 - not a great lover of the latest shape B&W's. Again expensive. The big problem maybe that they have again too much bass
The 804D3 is a possibility however
The Harbeth 40.2 has been suggested, again expensive, not a floorstander and apparently needs lots of room around it
The spendor classic 100 has been suggested, i think it might be similar to the Harbeth
your thoughts ?

@oldius love that picture of the 801's. I had a pair of 801D's and the impact of that 15" driver was awe inpiring. Unfortunately my 'ballroom' was a lot smaller than yours and i eventually conceded that they were too big for the room. I thought about moving house to try and find a room big enough i liked them so much.

@MartinC luckily I have a Umik-1
@TIU you make a good point, the 802's do dominate this room in a way they didn't in my previous larger room, This is made worse by having to have them so far out into the room.
@jas0_0 I'd have to try it as best measuring doesn't necessarily translate to best sounding in my experience. In the past I upgraded from a CD5 to a CD7. The DAC in both players was the same but the CD5 had a solid state output stage whereas the CD7 had a valve one. Measured worse but sounded so much better. i must like euphonic distortions

thanks for all the replies,
A couple of people have suggested the Mini DSP SHD unit. £1250 typically
am i right in thinking i would also need a DAC...... suggestions please, likely cost
and you are confident that using my CD8 as a transport feeding the SHD feeding a DAC would sound as good as my CD8 on it's own
I remain sceptical of this !
From a room layout and aesthetic point of view i need get the speakers back towards the wall behind. I appreciate that the DSP would allow me to do this from a bass point of view ( less than 200 Hz ) but would i expect to get a thickening / less clarity in the midrange as i move the speakers back

@CnoEvil Thanks for suggesting the KEF's i will check them out. i have a soft spot for KEF's having enjoyed my time with Ref One 2's and Ref Three 2's in the past
@NopianoYes the ATC SCM 40's have to be near the top of the list for a listen since being infinite baffle they should be usable nearer room boundries
@MartinCNo i haven't posted about my Roon EQ anywhere else since i only had a dabble for an few days
@El Seanohere is a pic of the current position firing accross the room.
@Lurch thanks for the suggestion of the ESL's but having had a home demo or similar in the past i found i prefered conventional box type speakers for all their downsides
@hifinuttI had discounted the current 803 /4 models due to cost, i will check out the previous generation
@PuritéAudioyes much better. The boom is better perhaps because the 45 Hz peak is lower than before.

To all those who talked about EQ
i had borrowed a node 2 to dip my to into streaming. In another thread Keith mentioned that Roon has EQ in it so i took out a 14 day trail and experimented
These experiments were done with the speakers firing down the room. Without EQ the sound had 2 problems, boomy bass particularly when room nodes were excited and a recessed midrange. I used the parametric EQ function in Roon and found it did a reasonable job of sorting the low frequencies. Unfortunately the midrange was still recessed. When i tried to correct things here i couldn't get it to sound good at all. Perhaps the ears extreme sensitivity across this part of the audio band doesn't help.
Unfortunately for me the Audio Research CD8 can only act as a standalone CD player or a transport. You cannot access the DAC separately. So if i am to implement some sort of digital EQ solution in my system i would need to buy a box with a DAC and EQ functions that sound better than my CD8. If you can suggest something please do and i will investigate as it would let me keep my speakers. I can't see it being cheap !
It's a shame the Roon trial has now ended as with my new room layout the sound is much improved. By firing the speakers across the room width the midrange problems have gone and the bass is less boomy so perhaps a EQ solution targeting the low frequencies would have been possible.

For all those who asked here is my current REW plot of the treated room and the speakers firing across the width. Much improved over when the speakers were firing down the room
i'll try and answer some of your points in another post

Hi Guys, at work at the moment but will reply to all the great posts tonight. All the previous REW plots I posted are out of date since the speakers are now firing across the room rather than down it. Some more suggestions of actual speakers to consider most welcomed. M

Having moved house i have tried really hard to get my existing speakers ( B&W 802 Diamonds ) to work in the new room.
The room is 5.4m long, 3.9m wide and 3.1m high ( 17'6" x 12'10" x 10'2"). Carpeted floorboards over cellars,
I have experimented lots with positioning & room layout and having tried them initially firing down the length of the room i find they work much better firing across the width
Measurement with REW has been a useful aid to lots of listening. I have added room treatment ( 6 GIK TRI bass traps and panels at first reflection points etc ) which has also helped but not enough and i have reached the limit of what can be added tastefully
I have also borrowed a streamer and tried electronic EQ using the facilities in Roon but it degraded the sound too much for me
I have concluded that the heart of the problem is that the 802's produce too much bass for the room ( -6 dB @ 27 Hz ) and need to be too far from the room boundries. The front of the baffle is currently 1.3m ( 4'3" ) from the wall behind the speakers
So i propose to replace them with a speaker that produces a bit less bass and will enable me to place the speakers a bit further back and still sound taut
My exsting Krell amp will drive most things but i haven't ruled out active speakers.
Constraints, I would like floorstanders and my budget is around £5k plus what i get for the 802's, New or Secondhand either is fine
over to you, what should i consider ?

@MartinC Hi Martin, I doctored the figures to simplify the question i was asking. i didn't want people to concentrate on the speakers identity / performance i wanted to understand simply what the "room averaged response" wording in the Sabrina specification might actually mean particularly in relation to the bass end of things

Hi,
Just trying to compare loudspeaker specs / reviews. The first loudspeaker response is quoted as
38 Hz - 20 k Hz ± 3 dB . Then the reviewer goes on to mention that in his room the response was down to 31 Hz in room presumably due to room renforcement
the second loudspeaker is quoted as 31 Hz to 20 KHz ± 3 dB ( Room Averaged Response)
do the words "Room averaged response" mean effectively the same as "in room" or would you expect it to go lower when put in a room just like the first example did
Cheers